Last year, the Tennessee State Board of Equalization announced that it was considering a proposed change to the rules governing property tax appeals before the State Board.
The proposed change would have been terribly unfair to taxpayers in Tennessee. Taxpayers would not have received fair hearings.
The proposed rule labeled the people who help taxpayers, known as 'tax agents', as biased simply because of their employment and representation of taxpayers. Legally, a formal finding of bias means that the testimony and opinion of the agent, regardless of the merits of the opinion, can be more easily ignored or dismissed.
Click here to review the rule as it was originally proposed.
Click here to review our letter to the State Board of Equalization protesting the proposed rule and explaining why the proposed rule would be so unfair to taxpayers.
Click here to review the State Board's revised rule which was composed after receiving our letter and the letters of other attorneys and taxpayers.
We are grateful to have played a role in serving taxpayers by helping to prevent the adoption of an unjust and unfair policy.
Taxpayers can now continue to have tax agents provide meaningful testimony on issues such as property valuation and classification. This will give taxpayers a fighting chance in property tax hearings before the State Board of Equalization.